Well a while back I was taking a group ski lesson at the village and that day we had a pretty diverse group. I was in a lesson and we got out there And we were skiing pretty casual on some bumps, skiing around thunder, some sort of intermediate runs, and working on our technique and these kind of things. Our instructor was a great guy, sort of quiet. But to us as a group, he didn't seem like that great of a skier. He wasn't moving much faster than the group. was sort of scooting along, nothing fancy. We were easily able to keep up with him, so it seemed. And I think some of us were thinking, well, we're about as good as this guy. I mean, maybe we should have a little better instructor. What's going on here? And I think he was sensing that from us. Because as it happened, we made our way over to some more technical terrain. And he, sort of quiet, gave us a word or two of instruction. And we were feeling pretty confident, like, oh, we could take this guy. We all dropped in, and something funny happened. He was gone in, like, two seconds. What took us to ski, it would seem like, a couple of minutes. He was down, done, perfect in a couple of seconds. I've never seen anyone ski as fast as this guy did. And when we finally got to him, he was standing there with a big old grin on his face. He knew. He knew. He knew that we were getting a little cocky and sort of confident, and this guy isn't much. For much of the day, he was concealing his skiing ability and his skiing glory, if you would say. But the time came when he briefly broke out his ability and his glory, and we were all put in our place, necessarily. It was a humbling moment. Well, in some senses, this is what we'll see in our study tonight in Matthew 17, in a much, much greater and significant way. Of course, not having anything to do with skiing, but where Jesus has spent much time, or a couple of years into his earthly ministry, he spent much time with his disciples, And he hasn't yet revealed a certain aspect of the greatness of his supremacy and of his glory, and that he is anything but a great prophet. And for a brief moment, he'll break out his glory in a new way, in a frightening, in a terrifying way, frankly, in a necessary way, to reveal something of who he is for all the world to know. and to embrace and to live in light of. That Christ is like no one else. That it is entirely inappropriate to put him alongside any other spiritual guru or prophet or religious figure of any sorts. That the Lord Jesus Christ is the King of kings and the Lord of lords and he's in a category of his own. There is truly no one like him. He is the king of kings. And whatever we'll see in this passage tonight, this factual, historical event, that will become very clear. I trust it'll have a very helpful, humbling effect on us as it has on me as I've been studying for this for a few days now. Follow along as I read the passage. I wanna read it to you first, Matthew 17. I'm actually gonna start in verse 28 of chapter 16. to get a little running start, a little momentum, a little context here, and we'll read through verse 13 of Matthew 17, following as I read verse 28. Jesus says, truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. Verse one, chapter 17, six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, his brother, and led them up on a high mountain by themselves, and he was transfigured. before them. And his face shone like the sun, and his garments became as white as light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with him. Peter said to Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I'll make three tabernacles here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. while he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them and behold, a voice out of the cloud said, this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him. When the disciples heard this, they fell face down to the ground and were terrified. And Jesus came to them and touched them and said, get up and do not be afraid. And lifting up their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone. As they were coming down from the mountain, Jesus commanded them, saying, tell the vision to no one until the Son of Man is risen from the dead. And his disciples asked him, why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come first? And he answered and said, Elijah is coming and will restore all things, but I say to you that Elijah already came. and they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever they wished, so also the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.' Then the disciples understood that he had spoken to them about John the Baptist." Well, we are deep into our verse-by-verse study through the book of Matthew. If you haven't been with us, just a brief note of context, what's happening in this amazing book. Matthew, of course, written by the apostle Matthew, who was one of Jesus' disciples. who was with Christ and witnessed what he saw and he witnessed what he wrote about, excuse me, and about 20 years after Christ rose and ascended back into heaven, he wrote this inerrant, historical, biographical account, and he wrote, really, for many reasons, but above all, this is why he wrote. So that all of us, so that the world would be certain that this Jesus of the first century is both God and the long-awaited Messiah who is foretold for centuries in the Old Testament Scriptures. And so this passage is no exception serving that purpose, as Christ will sort of surprise some, as he reveals his greater glory, and people begin to realize, whoa, this Jesus is not just some great teacher. He is far more glorious than we imagine. And so this passage has rightly been called by some scholars as, quote, the greatest event between Christ's birth and his death and resurrection. And as often as is the case in the New Testament, especially in these Gospels, there is much, much Old Testament background that is assumed we know when we read the passage. And so we're going to unearth some of that and go back to the Old Testament, look at many passages. If you would bear with me in that, it's critical to understanding what is happening here. So, big picture of what is happening in the passage, this is in your bulletin as well in the notes section. Sort of the big idea of Matthew 17 is this, during his earthly ministry, during his earthly ministry, Jesus overwhelmingly proved and demonstrated that he is God and Messiah for the world so that we would fully, we would trust fully in him for salvation. Sort of a view of the forest here, what we're seeing in this passage. that Jesus overwhelmingly demonstrated that he is God and Messiah for the world, so that we would trust fully in him for salvation. In our outline for our study, just some sort of landmarks we'll see as we kind of bounce through the text here, four evidences we'll see from the text, four evidences that Jesus is God and Messiah. We'll see this throughout the text. As we exposit the Word of God, we're not gonna read our thoughts into it, we're just gonna bring out what's already there and leave our opinions at the door here. Four evidences that Jesus is God and Messiah, and we keep seeing this in Matthew's account here. He just wants to hammer it over and over that we would be certain who God, that this Jesus is God and our Savior who loves us and did the work of salvation. So number one is this, the first sort of evidence that Jesus is God is this, his hidden glory in verses one and two. His hidden glory or his concealed glory. This glory that was concealed that he sort of shows as a demonstration of his deity. Let's get right into the text, lots of good stuff happening here. Look at verse one with me if you would. So six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, his brothers. So six days later, from what? Well, from verse 28 of chapter 16. And the chapter break in here, the chapter and verses didn't get put into the Bible until centuries after it was inerrantly inspired, but the chapter break here is somewhat unfortunate because this event in chapter 17 explains what Jesus foretold in verse 28, where he says, hey, look, there's some of you standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. he's not saying coming in his kingdom in his second coming, but sort of this preview of his glorious splendor, what we will see in his second coming. So the sum of these, standing here, includes, of course, Peter, James, and John, who he took, who are about to see his glory before they die. And so, again, Jesus is giving a preview of in chapter 17 of his second coming, his return to earth. He came once, recall we've been studying, he came once this first time as a suffering servant savior in the manger, humble, dying on the cross for our sin, rising from the grave, and he'll come again, but it'll be different. He will come as a conquering crowned king. And in His mercy, He delays that second coming, which is going to happen, but He's delaying it because He's giving more and more people opportunity to repent and believe in Him. And of course, Jesus taught and believed he would come again, he would return to earth one day, and when he did, that he would bring final judgment upon all humanity, and he would begin his kingly reign, his global, theocratic, kingly reign over the entire earth, which is what will happen when he returns, and it will be a perfect reign, and all things will be done with perfect justice, all wrongs will be made right, The conditions of the earth will be Edenic again, like the Garden of Eden. Of course, that is still future. That is still future. By the way, are we ready for that? Are we ready for that? Glorious! moment which we await eagerly. There are about 300 mentions of Christ's second coming in the New Testament, so it is a major, major theme and fact. So Christ, again, in a nutshell, in this bizarre shining of glory is a preview of much, much more to come when he returns as a crown-conquering king. So he takes Peter, James, and John with him on the mountain, They're sort of Jesus's primary disciples of the twelve. You know, he had the twelve, then he had these three, with whom he spent most of his time. Why doesn't he take more people? Why doesn't he do this event in front of his skeptics? I mean, it seems like if they saw this, more people would be convinced, right? Well, in some sense he does, because it's preserved in Scripture, but also in some sense, perhaps he doesn't show this to more people as an act of kindness. as an act of his kindness. The skeptics had hardened their hearts towards Christ, and if they don't believe in the simple words of the Bible, they're not gonna believe some incredible supernatural miracle, they need to believe scripture first. That combined with the terror of the experience, let's be sure of this, you would not have wanted to be there on that day. And we'll get into more of why that is. That this is an act of kindness then, to limit the viewers to just these three guys. And that's instructive today, by the way, isn't it? But because often, today, people will crave to experience some sort of extraordinary vision. But there's a couple of major differences between a genuine, supernatural God-given experience in Bible times and then those that are manufactured today. First, people who experience those genuine things in the Bible, I mean, they didn't want to talk much about it. We also see that in 2 Corinthians 12 with Paul. He's like, you know what, I'm reluctant to even tell you about this. They weren't looking to brag about it. They weren't looking for a book deal from an evangelical publisher. The experiences were just too frightening. And so it's quite the opposite with those who claim supernatural experiences these days. And so Christ takes these three. Also, perhaps because in Jewish culture, in courts, three, an event was considered factual if it could be testified by three witnesses, and so here it is. And they take him on this high mountain. He takes him on this high mountain, probably Mount Hermon, which was one of the highest points in the Galilean area. And these are 20-ish something guys, fishermen, getting away from the crowds. And so, recall from chapter 16, Christ has been bringing the sobering news that there's going to be rejection, and they're experiencing that. There's going to be rejection, there's going to be suffering, there's going to be opposition before heaven. that the road to heaven is not paved with just sort of, you know, picnics and sunny, smooth days, that it is going to be a battle for those who would follow Christ. And so in some sense, this is kind of Christ to say, to kind of give them a reassurance that, hey, I'm still God, and I'm going to show you some of my glory as I prepare you for the hard road to heaven. And so his transfiguration here was a blast to remind God's people that no matter what suffering you go through and what opposition you experience for your faith in Christ, as 2 Timothy 3.12 says, everybody who follows Christ will be persecuted, that Christ is the supreme, glorious Lord of the universe, and he's watching over us, and he's merciful, and he's sovereign, and he's in charge. Matthew Henry wrote, quote, a sight of Christ's glory while we are here in this world is a good preparative or preparation for our sufferings with him. So this is helpful for us. Well, verse 2, look there with me if you would. Look at verse 2. And he was transfigured before them. Wow. This Greek word, transfigured, is the word from which we get our English word metamorphosis. It means to transform. to change. And so, like all people who saw Jesus during his first earthly ministry, the apostles were used to seeing Jesus as just this, you know, sort of normal-looking, first-century Middle Eastern guy like everybody else. Notwithstanding the, you know, Renaissance and medieval art, he didn't have a halo, he had no golden, like, dish behind his head, he had no sort of glowing backdrop. He was just a normal-looking Middle Eastern guy. But, then it happened. He was transfigured, verse 2, his face shone like the sun and his garments became as white as light. Now, many supposed spiritual figures have reportedly accomplished some things. Some individuals are depicted with, you know, light shining down on them, seated below a lotus tree with all kinds of apparitions and this kind of thing, clouds breaking, but this is entirely different. Because light is not shining on Jesus, it is shining from him. And notice it says it's like the sun. Like the sun. The sun is the brightest thing they could think of, that they knew, that human beings are acquainted with, and daily experience. There's nothing brighter. I mean, you can't look at the sun for more than, I don't know, a few seconds, a minute at the most, without frying your redness. And so these young mere men are scrambling to explain this, they're falling, they're turning their eyes away because it's so bright, turning away from the glory of Christ. This isn't some Hollywood spotlight shining, there were no such thing. This is Christ, this is the essence and the being of Jesus Christ, who he is. Now why does he do this? Why this bright light? I mean, is he just trying to dazzle us in sort of a mystical, subjective show? Jesus never dazzles people for dazzle effect. He's never looking for sort of emotional stirs. It's never what he's doing. He always has objective, single meaning in what he's doing that's rooted in the Holy Scriptures. There's great purpose in this. the disciples, again, that they need to deepen, as if you're like me, I do too, to deepen in their understanding of Christ. So Jesus doesn't want them thinking, oh, okay, cool, this is some sort of extraterrestrial prehistoric Area 51 kind of show being put on here, but that this event is packed with objective meaning and massive implications for humanity, which we'll look at the end. But light, starting from general to more specific, light of course is a reminder of power. There always has to be some power source to emit light. It's also a reminder of goodness, of holiness, of purity. Obviously, the light here is not coming from any physical object from which light usually comes in creation, like the sun, or a glow worm, or a lightning bug, or hot glowing metal. It's coming from Christ. So this light is a light associated with God, with the being of God. God, of course, who created light. Genesis 1, 3, God says, let there be light, and there was, of course. Furthermore, this light is coming from this individual who is claiming to be God and the Jewish Messiah, who's constantly referring to the Old Testament Scriptures, fulfilling them. And so, right away, the Jewish reader here in the first century would think of many Old Testament passages. They would just start popping in his mind. throughout history. It would also be a terrifying reminder. I want us to look very briefly at a couple of the passages that the first century audience would think of. Ezekiel 1. This happened, you know, circa 7th century BC. Ezekiel here, who was a prophet of the Lord, He is into exile, and he says, the word of the Lord came to Ezekiel the priest, son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans, by the river Chibar, and there the hand of the Lord came upon him. So Ezekiel is given a real vision of the glory of God, and notice, as I look, behold, a storm wind was coming from the north, a great cloud with fire flashing forth continually, and a bright light around it. Later in Ezekiel 43, similar thing, he led me to the gate, the gate facing toward the east, and behold, again, the glory of the God of Israel, and that Hebrew word there for glory, it means like the weightiness, the intimidating substance of God. In other words, the glory of God of Israel was coming from the way of the east, his voice was like the sound of many waters, and the earth shone with his glory. And so, the Old Testament reader knew that God's showing forth His holy presence was usually this intimidating, powerful light. We could also cite, like, Isaiah 6. Remember in Isaiah 6? It's about 740 BC. Isaiah sees the brightness of the glory of God in the temple. God's being shown in brilliant light. Psalm 104, a couple more passages we'll put up here real quick, just to familiarize. Psalm 104, bless the Lord, O my soul. O Lord, my God, you are very great. You're clothed with splendor and majesty, covering yourself with light as with a cloak. First Symantheses 6, he who is blessed, speaking of Christ, an only sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light. In 1 John 1-5, this is the message, "...we've heard from Him and announced to you that God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all." So Christ wants us to connect the dots here. This is an unsubtle hint, like a yell. Connect the dots, guys, and know who I am. I'm fully man, but I'm more than that. Now, this light associated with God is what's called, what theologians call the Shekinah, S-H, excuse me, E-K-I-N-A-H, the Shekinah glory of God. Shekinah is just a Hebrew word that has the idea of dwelling, presence, so the Shekinah glory of God, it means the visible brightness of God's glory that symbolizes his presence among his people, usually to bless. And so when Jesus' humble humanity is sort of pulled back, the curtain is pulled away for a second, it's a brief second out of mercy and not much longer, this blinding light comes forth and there is no confusion then about the discerning reader who Jesus is and the meaning of this event. Jesus is God. Any other opinion, anything, any other view other than that falls radically short and is willfully incorrect. Jesus is demonstrating, up till Matthew 17 here, Jesus has been demonstrating that he's God, right, in his words, in his preaching, in his healing, like he's so merciful, healing people from all these terrible sicknesses, but now he demonstrates that he's God just from the substance of his being. So he is set apart, isn't he? People can produce great things, you know, great musicians can produce great music, great builders and architects can produce great structures and houses, but nobody, nobody, nobody can do this. Nobody can produce a blinding light like the sun just coming from their own being. Of course, unless you're the one that made the sun and made all light. If you made light, then you can do this kind of stuff. This is the creator of the universe standing before them. He's God. He's, this Jesus is the source of light, of the sun, of the universe, of all other light-giving objects like nebula and galaxies. Christ is the eternal God. Do you know him? Do you worship the true Jesus? Or do you worship a Jesus of your own making? He's God, friend. Now, this situation also tells us something about his humanity, his human nature. He was not always man, of course. Jesus' birth is not the beginning of his existence, like it is for you and I, it's the beginning of his humanity. So his human nature, he takes on his human nature to sort of conceal, in a way, his full glory as God. Just like my ski instructor that day, you know, moving slow with us and kind of being humble, was concealing his full ability. This is partly what his men, as we read in Philippians two, I'll put it back up here, as we read earlier, just a reminder, Philippians chapter two, where Paul writes this, Philippians two, although he existed in the form of God, he did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped. But notice verse seven, he emptied himself. Do you see that, Thor? He emptied himself, taken the form of a bondservant, and being made in the likeness of men, being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Now look back at verse seven for a second. He emptied himself. What does that mean? Well, the verse goes on to explain it with the participles and all sorts of things. He took on humanity. So his emptying was sort of a taking on. How is that emptying himself by becoming a human? Because think about it. He's the creator. He's the God of supremacy. And so what a massive self-lowering it was for him to become a mere man. I mean, it'd be a very imperfect illustration, but it'd be like if you as a human being became a worm or like a maggot. You know, that'd be a self-lowering, but the illustration is lacking because that's comparing creation to creation. That's two created things still, right? But Jesus is uncreated, taking on the nature of the created. I like what Bruce Ware, here in his excellent book, The Man Christ Jesus, says this, quote, Christ Jesus, existing and remaining fully who he is as God, accepts his divine calling to come to earth and carry out the mission assigned him by the Father. As the eternal Son of God, who is himself the form of God, he must come in the form of a servant. That is, he must come fully as man, and as a man, he must live his life and give his life as one of us, in so doing. Christ pours himself out, all who he is, as he takes on in addition to his full divine nature, a full human nature. That is absolutely critical and an essential doctrine of the Christian faith. So, when Jesus becomes a mere man, you know, born and takes on humanity, it's like putting a lampshade over a light bulb, right? Why do you put a lampshade over a light bulb? because the light's so bright it hurts your eyes. You put the lampshade over it to sort of conceal it and tone it down a bit so you can handle being around it. And the humanness of Jesus when he became a man is like a lampshade which covers the full glory of his supremacy and his being so that he could safely be around puny, fragile little things, little human beings like us. He shaded himself. Another writer says that when he took on human form, his glory was not surrendered during the incarnation, it was veiled. So recall that before Christ came, in the temple, there was this most holy place. Let's think back to Old Testament times now. Back before Jesus came and was resurrected, they had the temple. And in the temple, there is this particular room called the Holy of Holies or the Most Holy Place. And there is a massive veil that protected this. And in the Holy Place, there is the Ark of the Covenant, which had the Ten Commandments and all kinds of stuff. Only one guy could go into the Most Holy Place once a year. That was the high priest on Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement. this most holy place, and in that place, in the temple, the Shekinah glory of God would be shown. And if you went in there any other time besides the prescribed time, you would die as a judgment of God for profaning His holiness. So, Exodus 26 says this, we'll put it up here, a little more history. God says to Moses, you shall make a veil and shall bring in the ark of the testimony there within the veil, and the veil shall serve you as a partition between the holy place and the holy of holies. And then Hebrews, a little later, Hebrews is sort of the part two of Leviticus, he says, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus by a new and living way, which he inaugurated for us through the veil that is his flesh. So in some sense then, what the veil was to the holy of holies in the Shekinah in the temple. Christ's humanity was to his full glory in the being, his deity of his being. His body served as a veil. Look, Jesus had to become human, first of all, to take our punishment on the cross, but so that other humans could safely see God and live. There's no other way. This proves Christ's deity. Number two, by Christ's deity, by the way, I mean that he is God. That's what that term means. Number two, Christ's fulfillment of the Old Testament. Christ's fulfillment of the Old Testament proves that he's God and Messiah. He fulfills the Old Testament. Look at verse three. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with him." Wow. Luke also adds in his account of this that they were speaking of Jesus' departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. They're talking about his death, his death on the cross, which is amazing. Because despite this appearance of Christ's glory, and we'll talk about what's going on here with Moses and Elijah, why did they show up? They've been dead for centuries. Despite this display of glory, notice they are talking about, as Luke 9.31 says, His death. His death. There is something more important than the bright lights, and that is the cross of Christ. His resurrection. And so this reminds us, the cross of Christ. is the point of His ministry, of His first coming. It's the center, the cross is the center of human history. Because it is where God deals with, man does not deal with, man cannot deal with. It is where God deals with man's greatest problem, and that is our condemnation and our separation before God, which we are all born into and live with constantly and will enter eternity with, until we savingly bow the knee to Jesus Christ. And so this is what Moses and Elijah are talking about with Jesus, the greatest event, the cross of Jesus Christ, where our sin is dealt with where the cross serves our sentence. So Moses and Elijah here are talking about the cross. Keep in mind Moses has been dead for about 1400 years and Elijah for 700. And so here they are. Because there's so much more to life in your existence than your brief couple of decades that you're here. There's so much more. Here they are, of course, Moses departed, Deuteronomy 34, 6, he was buried by God, probably so that his grave wouldn't be worshipped. Elijah, 2 Kings 2, 11, is taken up in a whirlwind with chariots of fire. Why them? Very briefly, because Moses, let me say it this way, they represent the law and the prophets. Okay, which is the common term for the Bible in the Old Testament, the Law and the Prophets. Moses was used by God to write the section of the Bible called the Law, first five books, right? Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. And Elijah was one of the premier prophets who was used in a critical time of apostasy, 700-ish BC, to call God's people back. And he performed this prophetic ministry And so Christ is, as we saw earlier in Matthew 5, Christ is the fulfillment of the law and the prophets, which is to say he's the fulfillment of the Old Testament. The Old Testament really is just an arrow to Jesus. We need Jesus, he's coming, he's gonna die for us. And so Moses and Elijah are sort of appearing with the one in history, Messiah and God, to remind us for certain that Jesus is this Messiah and God. the center point of history. Also this would give these, the witnesses here, James, Peter, John, hope and a great reminder because they grew up knowing Messiah's gonna come, Messiah's gonna come. So verse four. Peter said to Jesus, Lord, it's good for us to be here. If you wish, I'll make three tabernacles here, one for you and for Moses, and one for Elijah. Again, this is rooted big time in Old Testament Scripture, and Peter wanted to set up some tents and sort of surf the moment, but this glory of Christ's splendor in the preview of his second coming reminded them of the Jewish festival from the Old Testament. Which one? The feast of what? Tabernacles, right? Tabernacles. One of the biggest celebration in the Old Testament times is the greatness of God where they would live in tents for several days to remember God's faithfulness to his people when he brought them out of Egypt and also looking forward to the future kingdom. And so all that to say the Old Testament here is being shown to bottleneck in Jesus Christ which proves his deity. Number three, evidence of His deity, the affirmation from God the Father. The affirmation from God the Father. There is a huge affirmation from God the Father that Jesus is who He says He is. He's God, He's Messiah. Look at verse five if you would. While he, speaking of Peter, was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them. And behold, a voice came out of the cloud and said, this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him. Cloud. So did an instantaneous weather pattern kind of develop here? Jewish fishermen, what these guys are, would not be falling on their faces because of a little rain cloud. Terrified. Again, this is rich in meaning. The Jewish audience here would know exactly what was happening. Again, Matthew, by the way, is the most Jewish flavored of the four Gospels. Okay, they would know what's going on here with the cloud. Exodus 19, let's go back a little bit of history. In the third month after the sons of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, so we're again, we're 1445-ish BC, God's people, about two million of them, are rescued out of Egypt, which was a powerhouse nation at the time. They came out of Sinai. God rescues them. He temporarily cripples the entire Egyptian army, not just the army, but really the nation, to save his people and shows himself as the true God over the Egyptian false gods. But then this happens, Exodus 19, 9. The Lord said to Moses, Behold, I'll come to you in a thick cloud so that the people may hear when I speak with you and may also believe in you. forever. Then Moses told the words of the people to the Lord. So it came about on the third day when it was morning that there were thunder and lightning flashes and a thick cloud upon the mountain, God coming, and a very loud trumpet. So all the people who were in the camp trembled. Exodus 19, a couple more passages, now Mount Sinai was all in smoke because the Lord descended upon it in fire, its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, the mountain quaked violently, the Lord came down on Mount Sinai to the top. Verse 21, the Lord spoke to Moses, go down, warn the people, warn them so they do not break out, break through to the Lord to gaze and many of them perish. Also let the priests who come near to the Lord consecrate themselves or else the Lord will break out against them. Exodus 24, 15, then Moses went up to the mountain and the cloud covered the mountain. And then later in Exodus 40 when the temple is completed, the cloud covered the tent of meeting, this is the tabernacle, and the glory of the Lord filled it and Moses wasn't able to enter it because of the cloud. And so this is the Shekinah glory of God in this bright cloud. And this is all they would be thinking about. which symbolize God's presence of blessing, but also a very intimidating presence. I mean, God says, don't come near the mountain. Don't think that you can just come to God like he's your homeboy, or like you can come to one of your friends or something. You die if you come to God casually in Old Testament times. Fast forward to 1 Kings 8, by the way, and Isaiah 6. Isaiah sees this cloud fill the temple in 1 Kings 6. This is about 900-ish BC. The permanent temple in Jerusalem is completed. Solomon prays the prayer of blessing, and it happened when the priests came from the holy place, so they go through all of these stipulations of blood sacrifice. Why? Because the place has to be cleansed with blood, because a sinful human being can't just approach God without blood. You need blood. an innocent sacrifice to prepare us to have a relationship with God. So they do all this, and then verse 11, the priest couldn't stand to minister, notice, because of the cloud of the glory, for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord. And so the young apostles who grew up in synagogue, as all the Jews did in that day, knew these stories by heart, and these passages start coming to mind and hitting them, and they're totally sobered. The God who shook the mountain, who dwelt in this unapproachable light, who filled the temple, Jesus is this God. He's a glorious God. And He's not to be thought of as someone who can be approached casually or however I feel like it, wherever I feel like it, whenever I feel like it. Oh no. No, we come on Jesus' terms, thinking of Him correctly as He is, not how we want Him to be. As He commands with a reverence and a humility. Jesus is God, and this is the point. Full glory of God is at a peak in the person of Christ. And he's just quickly just showing it. Of course, verse 5, look there, a voice comes out of the cloud. This is God the Father speaking unmistakably from heaven so that everyone can hear. God the Father is affirming the deity of God the Son. This is my beloved Son. relationship, I love him, my cherished son, my unique son, I'm well pleased. It means everything that Christ is and does is perfectly pleasing to God the Father. And then of course he concludes it, look at the end of verse 5, listen to him, exclamation point. Listen to him. That Greek word there, listen, it doesn't mean, well, just hear like you hear a bird chirping. And the word there carries the idea of paying attention to something so as to live in light of it, or listening so as to obey, is what that means. So God the Father is saying, listen very carefully to my son, now that I've confirmed to you who he is, and obey him. Because as Jamie quoted, John 3.36, those who do not obey the Son, the wrath of God abides on them. And so verse 6, when the disciples hear this, they fell face down to the ground and were terrified. Whatever self-exalting pride they had with them as they came up the mountain had been crushed in a moment by the hammer of God's glory. Does your pride at times, like mine does, need to be crushed by the hammer of God's glory? This is so instructive because, again, these are fishermen. These are guys who stay out all night in the fierce Galilean storms. They're not scared of clouds. And here they are, devastated, flattened. Men suppose that they're great and of impressive stature in the world, that they're a somebody, until they begin to understand something of the glory of His Majesty, King Jesus Christ. Pride and self-praise are not solved. Pride and self-praise are not solved by merely thinking less of ourselves, but by thinking more of King Christ. This is a great lesson in humility that benefited these men for life. Perhaps some of you need this lesson like I do. Before we get the privilege of God's grace and forgiveness, we need to be terrified by the truth of God's glory and his supremacy. Again, this is a very small preview of what will happen and what will be seen when Jesus returns. We've been looking at this in Matthew 24. Jesus says, look, when I come back, everybody's going to be terrified. Everybody will mourn and run. Those who haven't believed in me. He said that. General Jesus said that. Verse 7, look there. And Jesus is so gracious. He came to them and touched them and said, get up and do not be afraid. What grace in the midst of His glory. Notice how gentle Jesus is to those who will humble themselves before His glory. Jesus is gentle and gracious to those who will bow to His Lordship this side of heaven. It's going to be an entirely different story and situation for all who will not submit to His Lordship. Of course, it doesn't have to be that way. I mean, look, he just gently touches them. It's okay. He gives grace to the humble. Verse eight, look there, and lifting up their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone. What an act of God's kindness to remove the Shekinah cloud and the Shekinah light and the voice and the brightness. It was too much for mere men to see for only a quick minute. And so he just takes it away and just comes and just touches them gently. It's okay. Because you have humbled yourself and fallen down and worshiped me as I deserve, Jesus says, there's grace. There's grace. But the worship has to come. Verse 9, as they were coming down from the mountain, Jesus commanded them, saying, Tell the vision to no one until the Son of Man has risen from the dead. Son of Man is self-title. Why shouldn't they tell anyone until after his resurrection? Because so many have hardened their hearts against Jesus. It was an act of mercy, because the more we see of Jesus, the more we hear about Jesus, the more we will be held accountable for, right? And also many were looking for a sort of a political, nationalistic Savior, not a Savior from their own sin. So the resurrection needed to happen before they could begin to rightly understand this. Tell no one, and of course these men would tell of it, wouldn't they? John would write about it later in John 1.14. John 1.14, he says, we saw his what? His glory. And in 2 Peter, Peter writes of it just before his death, 2 Peter 1, 16-18, he says, look, we didn't follow myths when we made known to you Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty when he received honor and glory from God the Father and utterance was made, this is my beloved Son with whom I'm well pleased. And Peter says, we, verse 18, heard this when we were with him. All that to say, God the Father's affirmation demonstrates the deity of Christ. Number four. Few minutes left here. Number four, demonstration of Christ's messiahship and deity, his association with the messianic forerunner. His association with the messianic forerunner. What does this mean? His association with the Messianic forerunner, verses 10 through 13. Look at verse 10. His disciples asked him, well, why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come first? Why do they say that? Lots of Old Testament happening here. Very briefly, they ask Jesus this because they know that the Old Testament taught that someone like Elijah would come as a forerunner to the Messiah. And so they see here, okay, Jesus, you're giving a preview of your future kingdom. Where's this forerunner? Where's this Elijah-like individual? Where is he? In verse 11, Jesus says, So, John the Baptist, whose head had already been chopped off by Herod a couple chapters ago, was the forerunner to the Messiah. John is speaking about Jesus, he's saying, this is the Messiah, Jesus has association with him, John is talking about me. And John was killed for his faithfulness to God, just like in verse 12, Jesus will be crucified. Bottom line, everyone would know here that because of Jesus' association with the Messianic forerunner, John the Baptist, that he indeed is God. Well, at the beginning we mentioned a couple of implications this has on all humanity, a couple of so whats. Let me just give them to you real quickly here. Number one, so what about all this? So what that Jesus showed the Shekinah associated with the forerunner? So what? Number one, worship him, friend. Worship him. There's no one like Jesus. He's the eternal God, the light, He's the creator of all light. We're not great. You're not great. I'm not great. Jesus is the great one. Worship Him. Anything else which we would worship or serve is gonna absolutely pale in comparison. We worship everything. We worship our intellect. We worship our credentials, we worship our academic abilities, we worship our recreational abilities, whatever it is. Live for Christ, friend. Worship Him. Number two, trust Him for salvation. Trust Him for salvation. People suppose that they can depend on many things to exit this life and safely enter eternity. People depend on their own works, on their own morality, on their good intentions, on other false gods. Friend, Christ is the Savior. And since he's the Savior, nothing else is. Your works, my works, our good intentions pale in comparison. All the false gods pale in comparison. Joseph Smith, Siddhartha Gautama, Shiva, Vishnu, Krishna, Brahman. all these individuals pale in comparison to Jesus Christ. Trust in Him for salvation, trust in Him alone for salvation. Number three, imitate His humility. Imitate His humility. First Philippians 2, we saw Philippians 2 that Jesus Jesus' humility is supposed to be something that we imitate, Philippians 2.5, have this attitude in yourself which is also in Christ Jesus. Humility, in light of Christ's supremacy, how could we boast in ourselves? Humility means a servant's mindset in light of understanding who God is and our great, great sinfulness. Humility means the attitude of a student under the Word of God, a servant towards the people of God, and a respect for the glory of God. Are you humble? And then fourth, live in light of his return. Live in light of Christ's return. This is a preview of his second coming. previews come out because there's much more to come. The only life that makes sense on earth is the life that's lived in preparation for Jesus' second coming. And so, Lord Jesus, we thank you for your mercy, your love, your death on the cross for our sins. Let us live in light of these truths. For your glory, we pray. Amen.